#I don't see why Sugimoto would need to die about it too

[hedgehogcryptid]

Been thinking about Golden Kamuy and all the people who are kinda pissed or disappointed Sugimoto didn't die and my two cents about it are:

1) It's not really about him. His purpose is to be an ignorant fuck so that the audience has a reason to learn about the ainu, and follow Asirpa along as she explains and guides us through their world and their struggles. If Sugimoto dies then it does become about him, and that defeats the purpose. We're not supposed to mourn the likeable young man left adrift by the war who tragically died in pursuit of a higher purpose. We're supposed to empatize with the fight of the native people fighting for the right to their very existence

2) Sugimoto's purpose is to be Asirpa's bodyguard, and that means he HAS to be immortal, because the world construed in GK is one where violence has very real consecuences. The teenage girl facing against war veterans and violent ex convicts, as the sole key to obtaining unimaginable riches, would NOT have a happy ending in that world unless she had a protector that broke the laws of the universe

2.1) The alternative would be that Asirpa somehow be able to protect herself and that would mean SHE became an unrealistically cool, capable, unkillable character, which also defeats the purpose. GK presents the Ainu with respect to their culture and their struggles. It does not present them as an over-romanticized version of themselves with barely any resemblance to the real people they actually are in exchange for cool points. They're not there to be an exotic and exiting new kind of shonen fighter. Sugimoto is the one shouldering the weight of unrealistic action sequences so that Asirpa can be a more accurate representation of realistic human beings with human problems and limitations

So basically, however much I like him, I think Sugimoto is less a human being than he is a plot device. Which coincidentally also builds up on his feelings of dehumanization due to what he went through on the war and his immortality itself

[goldenkamuyhunting]

I know you have talked about Ogata's and Sugimoto's relationship before. But I have been wondering if Ogata actually likes Sugimoto. Since I don't ship these characters, this is not for shipping sake. But there are quite a few small things that were pointed out to me in a post, this post being 'Sugimoto and Ogatas rivalmance'. I would like to know your take on this complicated, and possible love-hate relationship.

It’s a difficult question...

...because, as of now, as I said many times, only one thing is clear: they currently want each other dead.

I’ve kind of digged in their relation many time so many know already my point of view but I’ll try to sum it up again, if that’s okay with you.

The story starts with their first meeting in which, as soon as they make clear to each other they aren’t going to let go of the skin, they’ll have to kill each other to have it because neither is going to give up and their goals are mutually exclusive.

At the start is just that.

The irony is that they starte it likely each of them assuming the other was/could be a convict.

We see Sugimoto thinks the one shooting at them was someone with the convict they captured.

Ogata, might not have assumed this at first, as otherwise the smartest thing to do was to kill Sugimoto, however he realizes Sugimoto is shooting with a type 26 (an army officier gun pretty expensive) and thinks he’d got it by stealing from a dead soldier (actually the gun belonged to the prisoner and he’s likely the one who stole it from one of the soldiers who were killed when they escaped).

When they faced each other they realize they’re both from the army.

Sugimoto knows he can’t get to an agreement that he’ll allow him to keep the skin because, even if he were to win and let him go, Ogata would call his companions and they would kill him. If he were to keep him trapped Ogata’s companions would come to search for him (which they did) and Sugimoto’s position would be even more complicate. His best option is to kill him and hope no one will connect him to Ogata’s disappearance.

Ogata at first have no idea the one facing is Sugimoto the immortal but likely grasped he’s good at fighting, which he isn’t. As Sugimoto makes clear he won’t give up on the skin (he’s not doing it for money so it’s not like they can bribe him) his only option to get out of there alive and keep the skin is to kill Sugimoto so he attacks immediately trying to catch the other on surprise.

We know how it ends.

Sugimoto tries to kill Ogata, Asirpa stops him, Ogata escapes and in an attempt to stop this Sugimoto causes him to fall in the river and then persuade Asirpa it’s better this way.

Did they apprecciate each other in this exchange in which they had no better option that to kill each other?

No idea.

Ogata, apart from thinking Sugimoto got the gun from a dead soldier, keep for himself his thoughts.

Sugimoto thinks he’s from the dregs of the unit so he doesn’t really have a flattering opinion either.

You can still speculate because since nothing is said, everything can be assumed.

The next time they meet Ogata decides they’ve to ally due to Tsurumi potentially having gotten his hands on the tattooed skins. The key problem was probably that Ogata and Kiro were already in an alliance so he had to find a discreet way to inform Kiro of this. Same as he’ll do with Ariko, Hijikata was probably keeping an eye on him and Sugimoto was probably keeping an eye on Kiro (remember at the start Sugi didn’t trust Kiro much).

Sugimoto, seated at a table with Hijikata, who in his younth, in the night went and assassinated his fellow Shinsengumi member Serizawa, his mistress Oume, and one of his followers Hirayama Goro (Sugi should know about this but he surely doesn’t know Hijikata also killed allies in Barato) and a cannibal doctor who tried to eat Asirpa’s eyes, feels the need to accuse Ogata of being an untrustworthy traitor because he left a bunch of soldiers who were betraying his own country.

Sugimoto is sympathetic to Tsurumi’s cause so, of course, he excuses them for being traitors... but I think there’s something deeper in this because Tanigaki too dumped them but he never complained against him.

Anyway Sugimoto and Ogata are in an alliance together and, searching for Hijikata, Sugimoto ends up on saving Ogata, a favour that Ogata will return in the fake Ainu village, although Sugimoto makes clear he didn’t do it because he trusts Ogata.

We’ve then a long list of Sugimoto doing some minor, petty things in Ogata’s direction.

Some theorized Sugimoto realized Ogata would later shoot him.

With the long list of people who betrayed or tried to kill Sugimoto without him ever suspecting about them I’ll call it at best a lucky guess.

In a very old post of mine, among other things, I theorized such behavior might be not about Ogata but about the circumstances in which their first meeting took place.

In a more recent meta I wondered it could be due to something that happened with Toraji, the other feline in the story (Toraji is called by Umeko Tora-chan where “tora” means tiger) and Sugimoto is merely projecting on Ogata what had happened with his best friend.

The truth is we don’t know. Again each interpretation is a valid guess until GK provides us with a canon answer.

As for Ogata at first he’s just occasionally annoyed with Sugimoto’s taunts but doesn’t answer to them.

Then something interesting happens.

Ogata learns it wasn’t Tanigaki who was responsible of the death of Tamai and Co.

Why is this even relevant?

Now we know that, when Ogata met up with Tanigaki the first time, he was already aware Tsurumi knew he had betrayed them. He and Nikaidou are basically two wanted man. They end up believing Tanigaki killed Tamai and Co... and decide to waste their time hunting him down in retaliation.

The action is useless, Tanigaki can’t reveal to Tsurumi anything Tsurumi doesn’t already know, Tsurumi could track them down, which he’ll do, yet they decide to hunt Tanigaki. Or better, Ogata decides. Nikaido by then was already obsessed with killing Sugimoto and didn’t really care much.

So apparently Ogata was really interest in avenging them.

But, as I said, Sugimoto said they weren’t killed by Tanigaki but by a bear and he was there and was watching. And it’s more likely Ogata connected the dots and figured that if they were killed by that bear Sugimoto might have had a hand in this. And this might have caused the relation to shift.

In chap 99 is implied Ogata and Sugimoto exchanged rifles, as it was Sugimoto who stole the type 38, but Ogata has it before the end of the chapter and Sugimoto might not have missed the fact as he should be capable to recognize the differences between a type 30 and a type 38.

The exchange makes sense as Ogata is much better at shooting while Sugimoto prefers to use the rifle as some sort of wand.

But then in chap 112 Sugimoto broke his rifle... and, for the first time, in chap 114, we’ve Ogata making a remark against him.

At this point, after he has broken Ogata’s rifle and Ogata remarked he did a stupid thing, Sugimoto wants the type 38 back. Ogata refuses and further hammer Sugimoto’s inability to shoot.

So, if previously Ogata merely kept quiet when Sugimoto would nag him, now he doesn’t do it anymore. Actually he starts it and finish it and from that moment on, Sugimoto won’t nag him anymore, actually he’s afraid Asirpa will say, in front of him, how Sugimoto mistakenly shoot the owl’s eye.

Do they like each other?

Whoever knows?

They sure as hell make an awesome team when they work together as Noda wrote them perfectly complementar, giving to each what the other lacks... but Sugimoto is fast to doubt of Ogata when Hijikata vents he might have joined them for personal ambitions... failing to spot how Hijikata, Toni and Kadokura planned to betray him, part him from Asirpa and use him as diversion, possibly sacrificing him.

And so we get to chap 14 and to Ogata shooting Wilk and Sugimoto.

I’m not sure why Wilk had to die, beyond revenge for, according to Kiro, having betrayed them. Ogata says shooting Sugimoto was due tot he latter talking with Wilk and, potentially, learning something he shouldn’t. It’s a good reason and Ogata definitely did his best to kill Sugimoto. He shot him in the head and then attempted to hit him again, even though he had poor vision of the spot in which Sugi was.

Ogata wanted Sugimoto dead, it’s failure on his part Sugimoto survived.

If this was because Wilk might have said him something, because Kiro was partial to Sugimoto and Ogata feared Kiro would discharge him in Sugimoto’s favour, or because he wanted revenge for Tamai and Co it’s up to speculation.

In the past I’ve also wondered if Ogata is merely projecting on Sugimoto. He knows Asirpa has a crush on Sugimoto and he knows Sugimoto has another woman and will leave her... same as Hanazawa did with his mother. He even went and tattled him out in this regard. Killing Sugimoto might be his own attempt to take it out against his father in an indirect way.

Ogata wanted Sugimoto dead and when he discovers he’s still alive while are on the ice drift his first thought is to happily try to shoot him again.

Sugimoto had made clear he’d gone to Karafuto to get Asirpa back and kill Ogata and Kiro. The whole scene in chap 171 in which Sugimoto tries to kill that man is Sugimoto projecting Ogata on the kidnapper and Asirpa on Enonoka in fact we see he calls Enonoka “Asirpa” and his fight with the guy not only strongly parallels the one he had with Ogata but it took 2 men to stop him from killing that guy and later Sugimoto even remarked how they should have let him kill the guy.

Again irony is at play because when Sugimoto finally find Ogata he inadvertitely causes Asirpa to shoot Ogata.

As he cares more about Asirpa not becoming a murderer than about killing Ogata (Sugimoto CARES A LOT ABOUT HER), Sugimoto does everything in his power to keep Ogata alive... and when he believes this won’t be possible with an excuse he goes to see him grabbing his bayonet clearly planning to kill him so that Ogata’s murder will be on his hands and not Asirpa’s.

When it turns out Ogata is fine and dandy Sugimoto makes clear his intention is to kill him. We see it when he escapes and we see it when he thinks that Vasily is Ogata.

We don’t know if Ogata plans to save him so as to return the favour and then kill him, or if he realized if he’s alive is just due to Sugimoto protecting Asirpa and therefore she’s the one to whom he owns something... but I think Ogata got a good grasp of how Sugimoto saved him for Asirpa and personally wanted him death so for him too would be more convenient to kill Sugimoto, who will clearly get in the way, than wait for Sugimoto to kill him.

Do they liked each other in all this mess?

I’ll say by the Karafuto arc the both of them were just obsessed with killing each other. At this point if friendship ever had a chance of blossoming between them, it clearly buried under the idea they’ve to kill each other.

Besides the two of them never really knew each other, likely misjudged them, possibly saw them through the eyes of other relations they had and were struggling with a lot of personal problems.

My personal HUGE hope is that for some reason they’ll overcome their murdering impulses and manage to join forces and to get to know each other and the fact they aren’t the people they think they are. I don’t think they can easily put aside all that went wrong between them but I’d like them to join forces for a common cause and... find an agreement somehow that doesn’t include murdering each other.

I think if they were to see each other for who they really are, they might get along... and even apprecciate the reciprocous strong points.

I would like it if GK were to show us than 10 years after the end of the story they managed to get friends.

For now though they’re too clouded by their idea they’ve to kill each other.

Of course though, there are a lot of blanks in their relationship, we hardly know what they thought about each other beyond the ‘I’ll kill him’ and so it’s all a matter of interpretation.

I think there are two key points in the puzzle that we’re still missing, why Sugimoto was so antagonisting with Ogata at the beginning and why Ogata ultimately decided to kill Sugimoto as I’m not fully sure it was because Sugimoto talked with Wilk... even if, in itself, is a reason good enough because, if that were true, it would jeopardize their plan.

Well, to be honest we also really need to know how the Ogata/Kiro allegiance formed as so far it’s a huge dark hole and it’s really relevant in the character dynamics instead.

If Noda will give us answers, depending on them even my view might shift radically... and I’m sure others could interpret the story very differently from how I’ve done. It’s vague enough it allows to more interpretations and I sadly don’t own the truth.

For now I’ll set on this.

Sorry, I’m not sure if it was what you were asking but the whole thing is VERY complicate and I tried for once to keep it short because I’m a tad overwhelmed by work at the moment...

Sorry again about it and thank you for your ask!

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Hey, I have a few questions regarding chap 165 where Ogata shoots Yuusaku. Since Yuusaku led the charge, didn't the 7th know he was killed by friendly fire? Do you think they ever suspected Ogata? Also in the scene between Yuusaku being shot and Ogata looking down his just fired rifle is a obscure scene with cracks and splatter and I can't stop thinking about it because I don't know what that is. Why does the perspective have Ogata aiming down, not up like the next page?

It’s an interesting quesiton and one that, as far as I know, is about a topic that wasn’t touched before!

Personally I don’t think the 7th division realized Yuusaku was killed by friendly fire but, even if they did, it likely wouldn’t be an occurrence that would surprise them greatly to the point to suspect someone did it on purpose.

First of all dead by friendly fire wasn’t so uncommon.

There have been many thousands of friendly fire incidents in recorded military history, accounting for an estimated 2% to 20% of all casualties in battle. The rate of friendly fire has remained remarkably stable, and unimproved, over the past 200 years. So it’s not like Yuusaku had died in a dark halley where someone clearly shoot him by purpose. He was on a battleground and being shoot by friendly fire in the heat of the battle could happen.

But there are also more things to consider.

Let’s start with how low were the chances that someone would notice the bullet direction during the battle.

Yuusaku is in the middle of a charge when he’s shoot. We don’t see much of that one but we saw a little of a previous one.

Look at the soldiers.

They aren’t really looking at Yuusaku, they’re looking ahead, to their enemies. Bullers are falling around them, a guy next to Yuusaku had one bullet going through his hat for crying out loud, there’s a general confusion and adrenaline is high.

It seems in such situation you suffer of tunnel vision, which is the loss of peripheral vision with retention of central vision, resulting in a constricted circular tunnel-like field of vision. In short you aren’t fully aware of what’s going on around you.

Assaults were hell, we can see another example of one in chap 1.

And another in chap 76.

People is busy surviving and, even if they might notice something, unless it doesn’t threaten their own survival it’s not a priority and will be dismissed.

So, although it’s true that the bullet went through Yuusaku’s skull and apparently came out from his eye causing blood to spray out ahead of Yuusaku and not behind him, this has lasted very likely only a bunch of seconds, seconds in which the soldiers were too busy in trying to survive to check on Yuusaku.

Yuusaku’s knees bend and he falls and people might not have noticed it or cared about it. Remember the pressure put on Sugimoto, his desperate wish to stay alive? (Chap 24)

This is the confusion and the emotional state in which the soldiers are fighting. People fall down but you instead get up and leave them behind and fight and try to survive.

Maybe someone noticed Yuusaku fell and cared enough to go to check on him as he was the flagbearer and Hanazawa’s son. Maybe he just fell and people continued to fight without even realizing it.

In this setting is even less likely they could see from which direction the bullet come.

If someone has noticed him falling and has picked him up, trying to bring him back to a doctor, he likely didn’t notice from where the bullet go through and from where it went out. The fact that conveniently Ogata seems to have hit Yuusaku’s eye probably helped not to notice that’s from where the bullet went out and, in addition to this, it seems it’s not so easy to figure out which is the exit hole and the entering hole of a nurmal bullet, so probably a soldier wouldn’t have realized.

Sure, a doctor might have noticed which direction the bullet took, but the doctor probably didn’t see the scene and, even if he did, dead by friendly fire happened, so he likely didn’t think anything of it, except maybe it was sad to lose someone due to friendly fire. Maybe, considering how Yuusaku was considered a luck bringer due to his virginal status, he didn't even report he was killed by friendly fire afraid this would be seen as a sign of misfortune and lower the soldiers' morale.

Now, although we don’t see people near to Ogata, it can be there were other soldiers next to him.

Ogata was in one of the trenches and we see there could be other soldiers there...

...maybe even Tanigaki...

...but I doubt they realized Ogata was aiming at Yuusaku. Yuusaku was in the middle of the battle, and they too likely were aiming at the middle of the battle, trying to hit a Russian. And, of course, they couldn’t see Ogata’s bullet track and realize it went through Yuusaku’s skull.

Long story short, I’m not sure the 7th could have realized on its own how Yuusaku died, especially considering flag bearers like Yuusaku had a high mortality rate.

They might, ‘might’ have been told by a doctor... but I think everyone believed it was preferable if Yuusaku died fighting than by being shoot by friendly fire.

That’s why Tanigaki thinks that it’s a good idea to kill Kenkichi in the back in the middle of the confusion, because no one is going to suspect Kenkichi was killed on purpose by friendly fire.

Still... Ogata is disliked so could they still suspect him?

It’s noteworthy to point out Yuusaku didn’t die in his first charge or his second. He died after quite an amount of charges. And Ogata never shoot him although at each charge he had the same chances to kill him as in the one in which he killed him.

So, unless something happened of which everyone was aware of, I think people wouldn’t think Ogata suddenly decided to shoot his brother when he hadn’t done it for so many times.

It’s also clear Ogata didn’t benefit at all from Yuusaku’s death as Hanazawa didn’t suddenly remember he had another son, actually since Yuusaku was nice with Ogata and was of higher rank, people might have viewed Yuusaku’s dead as a damage to him because he would have lost the support of a second lieutenant and, possibly of one of the few people nice to him.

So honestly no, I don’t think they would have jumped to the conclusion Ogata killed Yuusaku. Flagbearers had a high mortality rate so Yuusaku was likely expected to die soon and probably no one was surprised when it eventually happened.

Maybe they tossed it as ‘another joke at Ogata’s expense’, hoping the accusation would hurt him, or maybe commenting how Ogata wasn’t appropriately grief stricken, but I doubt they believed he did it. They likely just considered him cold and unpleasant and wanted to hurt him because they didn’t like him, not because they had concrete suspicions.

In short they might have done it more in Koito’s fashion, ‘he’s the son of a scammer so he HAS to be a scammer himself because he has an unpleasant personality’ than in a genuine ‘hey, I think there is a genuine possibility Ogata killed his brother because he has the motive, the means and the opportunity’ fashion or ‘Ogata should have killed his brother because there’s proof X’ fashion. No concrete suspicions, just usual bullying.

After all a similar suspicion, if based on something vaguely concrete, would have required a huge investigation considering Yuusaku’s status and would have reached Hanazawa’s ears as well so, since nothing as such happened, I think it’s safe to assume the soldiers in the 7th had no idea Ogata murdered his brother and, if there was among them someone who knew about it (maybe because he overheard Ogata and Tsurumi’s conversation) he just kept it for himself.

I know many thinks Tsurumi didn’t want Yuusaku to be killed but truth is Tsurumi didn’t want Yuusaku to be killed because he hoped he could turn useful to his cause and we saw he checked Ogata’s progresses on him. Yuusaku’s failure to kill a Russian prisoner of war and his stubborn obedience to his father’s instructions likely sealed his fate as someone who wouldn’t be useful whatsoever to Tsurumi’s cause as he clearly wouldn’t:

- approve stealing the Ainu gold for Tsurumi’s benefit

- approve using it to buy weapons to oppose to central command and create a dictatorship under Tsurumi’s rule

- approve murdering everyone who opposed to Tsurumi (Wada, for example)

- approve murdering his own father so that this would cause central command to shift the blame on the 7th so Tsurumi can fed on the 7th discontentment’s.

If Yuusaku had survived the war he would have clearly opposed to Tsurumi’s plan at each chance he got (and clearly couldn’t be involved in his father’s murder). Tsurumi needed to replace him with someone more complacent like Koito, who does everything he can for Tsurumi.

The charisma Yuusaku showed would have also played to Tsurumi’s disadvantage as men who would have followed Tsurumi now would have been torn between following Tsurumi and Yuusaku.

So I think in the end Tsurumi gave Ogata permission to shoot Yuusaku... though he might have voiced it in a less direct manner.

Ogata is still guilty of agreeing to shoot Yuusaku down for his own purposes but, ultimately, I think he had permission to do it... and he had no reasons to rush things and do it on his own. Yuusaku was clearly proving he wouldn’t be of use to Tsurumi (never mentioning Tsurumi had to have a hand into staging the whole war prisoner thing) so it was only a matter of time before Tsurumi would allow him.

Sorry but I’m not really sure why you find this scene obscure...

We saw in previous scenes how Ogata, to aim, has to basically raise himself above the trench and shoot in an almost orizontal manner, his rifle only slightly pointed a bit higher.

The view changes a bit according to the angle from which the scene is seen but that’s likely Ogata is more or less aiming always with the same angle.

So when Ogata shoot Yuusaku he likely wasn’t aiming down, he was aimingthe same as in the other situation. If the picture with him seems to have him aiming down it's either just the scene being seen by another angle or, alternatively, he was just lowering his gaze as he watched Yuusaku fall since he had already shoot him (Ogata normally aims at the head and therefore that’s what he looks at so it makes sense he had to slightly lower his gaze to follow Yuusaku’s fall).

Or have I misunderstood what you mean? If that’s the case I apologize.

Thank you for your ask!